Friday, February 14, 2014

Photographs published this week
by an anti-racist website show the late Andrew Breitbart, a leading
figurehead among mainstream conservatives, and his onetime protégé James
O’Keefe – whose undercover videos are credited with causing the demise
of the community organizing group ACORN – rubbing elbows with young
white nationalists at two different right-wing conferences.

The pictures are noteworthy because Breitbart, who died of a heart
attack in March 2012, and O’Keefe had been adamant that they had nothing
to do with the conference attendees – and vocally attacked anyone who
suggested otherwise.

The Robert Taft Club held the “Race and Conservatism” forum in
August, 2006 and was headed at the time by anti-immigration activist Marcus Epstein,
who later pleaded guilty to assaulting an African-American woman in
2007. It featured a discussion between two noted far-right figures,
“academic racist” Jared Taylor and pundit John Derbyshire of the National Review (since fired
for writing racist articles). The forum had been forced to change its
venue after the original sponsor – a conservative campus outfit called
the Leadership Institute, which employed both Epstein and O’Keefe –
pulled out when the Southern Poverty Law Center voiced concern.

O’Keefe attended the event and, according to One People’s Project
editor Daryle Jenkins, was instrumental in helping Epstein run the
gathering. A report by Max Blumenthal for Salon on the gathering quoted a photographer who said that O’Keefe was “helping Marcus Epstein in the execution of the event.”

Blumenthal’s piece inspired a notorious rant by Breitbart,
who confronted the journalist in a hallway when he attended a different
conservative gathering in 2010, accusing the journalist of smearing
O’Keefe with his reportage on the gathering. “Why did you lie?” he
demanded to know, jabbing a finger in Blumenthal’s chest.

That incident in turn was woven into the “documentary” Hating Breitbart, a
hagiographic film made after the activist’s sudden death, devoted to
showing that he and his protégés had been the victim of vicious attacks
from liberals. This included O’Keefe, who described his participation in
the 2006 event thus for the filmmakers: “Blumenthal said that because I
was at a debate where this racist guy was debating this black guy,
because I was present…then he went on to say how I organized the debate,
blah, blah, blah. It’s all false.”

One People’s Project also published a photograph of Breitbart posing
with Matthew Heimbach, taken from Heimbach’s Facebook page. In the
comments accompanying that photo, Heimbach’s friends accused him of
Photoshopping the picture; in reply, he informed them it was taken at an
Americans for Prosperity gathering, and responded that his critics
should attend more conservative conferences.

Daryle Jenkins told Hatewatch he was inspired to publish the old
photos this week because he had finally gotten around to watching Hating Breitbart, and decided that he needed to update his older entry on O’Keefe to refute the film’s claims.

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.